TB case study: Melissa and Jon Ravenhill

Since 2001 the couple have experienced three TB breakdowns, and with the farm closed off since February last year they are eagerly awaiting the results of the latest post mortem.

“We had one reactor on the last test and there were no lesions,” says Melissa. “If there's nothing showing by next week we will be clear.”

But after eight years of battling the disease, there is little optimism left on the farm and they are well aware that any all clear may only be a temporary respite.

“It just seems to keep coming back,” she says. “It is getting worse and whatever is being done to prevent it just isn't working.”

Melissa and Jon are tenant farmers and run an organic unpasteurised cheese company, producing milk from a herd of Shorthorn crosses and selling into local farmers markets and restaurants.

But like many farmers hit by TB, their business is beginning to struggle as cow after cow is taken out of the herd and the farm closed off to the outside world.

“TB causes a whole series of problems for us,” she says. “We make unpasteurised cheese and when you have got TB you have to pasteurise the milk and so we lose that part of our business.

“The other effect is because we rear our male calves as store cattle for grazing on common land we can't take them off the farm so we are then overstocked as far as the organic regulations are concerned.

“They normally go off grazing and are sold off at the end of the season so we lose the income from that and we have to pay the additional feed costs.”

There is also the emotional effect on the family as it watches its herd – and consequently its business – take one hit after another.

“It is just heartbreaking when the cows go,” she says. “We know all our cows, they all have names; we rear them, we feed them and we look after them and when they are taken out of the herd it is difficult to describe how that feels – it's like having your dog slaughtered.”

With the farm adjacent to thick woodland providing home to all sorts of wildlife, there is no doubt in her mind where the disease has come from.

“We live in lovely wooded area and we get all sorts of wildlife like badgers and deer coming onto the farm,” she says. “So it is not easy to keep them away – short of fencing in the entire farm I just don't know what more we can do.

“We try to keep the badgers out of feed stores but they will dig under the barn door and get in anyway. We also try not to put animals where there's a known badger sett and we try to keep the drinking troughs off the ground as much as possible.”

While badgers are a major problem, she accepts cattle to cattle transmissions are also a problem and something needs to be done to tackle TB in both cattle and wildlife.

“A cull is one way to go and it's part of a solution but we live in a democratic society and most people do not back a cull so we have to think pragmatically and find other ways of tackling this,” she says.

“I am sick and tired of being told there will be a vaccine for cattle in 10 years – they have been saying that for the last 30 years. We need to see a concerted effort to produce a vaccine because that is the only way this is going to stop.

“If a blanket vaccination programme among cattle got underway you could tackle it, you would have no disease in cattle. You would still have TB in the wildlife population, but the main thing is the farming industry would be clean.”

With the farm almost paralysed by the disease, Melissa and Jon are passionate about TB but with a business to take care of they have found it increasingly hard to get their message across.

“We don't like to shout about it,” says Melissa. “We sell cheese at local farmers markets and in local restaurants, and the customers won't like it if they think the herd is infected.

“I really want to stand on the rooftops and shout about this, to go on TV and radio and let people know just what is happening on the farm, but I don't want to jeopardise the business we have built, so we have to stay quiet.”